


Quiet

by wintercreek



Series: 6/7 Interstices [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Juvenilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-08-11
Updated: 2002-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stepping slowly across the short grass, she moved in a daze. Her long white skirt belled out in the wind, catching the moonlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet

Spike shivered briefly. It was more of a sympathy shiver than anything else, just another one of those oh-so-human traits he'd never gotten rid of. _How can she stand it? I'd be freezing, if I still had a temperature._

Buffy herself was oblivious to the chill wind that whipped over the field. Stepping slowly across the short grass, she moved in a daze. Her long white skirt belled out in the wind, catching the moonlight.

Spike was mesmerized. He found himself unable to move, wondering what she was doing.

The Slayer let a small sigh escape her lips. The day had been a long one. More than that, she was suddenly and for no apparent reason reminded of her mother. Buffy was learning to be patient with the occasional waves of grief that still washed over her, learning to wait until the overwhelming sadness passed. So many lost. Sometimes it was Joyce whose absence haunted her; sometimes Tara; sometimes simply the specter of the sheer number of lives she hadn't been able to save. _No one ever told me that having a Calling would be easy,_ she thought resignedly. _They could have at least lied to me._ Tonight was different, though. Rather than stay inside this time, Buffy had been moved by an unfamiliar urge to go out side. So she did.

It occurred to Spike, only for one irrelevant moment, that his peroxided hair must be catching the moonlight almost as gloriously as the Slayer's own skirt. _Effulgent. Hmm._

The grass beneath her bare feet was dew-covered and chilled, but Buffy knelt anyway. The white skirt pooled around her. She lowered her head until it touched the ripples of her skirt. Rolling back up with an uncurling that began at the base of her spine and continued up through her neck, Buffy straightened and looked upward.

Curious, Spike turned his gaze skyward. Out here, away from the city lights, the sky was spangled with stars; even the dimmest stars shone clearly. _It's ... daunting. Makes a bloke feel so small._

_It's good to feel insignificant once in a while. My failings, my problems, even my successes--they're nothing compared to this. So big. So dark. Great love and great hate make no difference in the face of these stars, burning out there._ Buffy exhaled slowly and bent once more to the ground.

The Vampire tilted his head. _What is she thinking?_ He watched her gather her skirt closer around her, reaching down so that her hands rested in the earth and her nose touched the grass.

_If I stay this way forever, I might one day be able to feel the pulse of the earth. A steady, reassuring beat, sustaining and powering the cycle of existence. So low, you'll never hear it. I wonder if the stars strain to hear it, if they envy its life, its power._ Smiling softly at her own whimsy, the Slayer lifted her head again. Kneeling in the dew, gazing about her as the wind softly lifted her hair, Buffy felt something within her relax and grow still. Unbidden, an image came to her mind: a pool of water, deep within a forest somewhere, the water's surface untroubled by ripples. Quiet.


End file.
